China and Japan at Odds

China and Japan at Odds
Author: J. Hsiung
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2007-09-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 023060711X

This book is a penetrating study of the long conflict between China and Japan. Drawing upon history, geopolitics and geoeconomics, this volume examines these important Asian powers at the bilateral, regional, and global levels. Contributors examine issues including oil feuds, the Taiwan factor, and implications for U.S. interests in Asia Pacific.

China and Japan

China and Japan
Author: Ezra F. Vogel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2019-07-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674240766

A Financial Times “Summer Books” Selection “Will become required reading.” —Times Literary Supplement “Elegantly written...with a confidence that comes from decades of deep research on the topic, illustrating how influence and power have waxed and waned between the two countries.” —Rana Mitter, Financial Times China and Japan have cultural and political connections that stretch back fifteen hundred years, but today their relationship is strained. China’s military buildup deeply worries Japan, while Japan’s brutal occupation of China in World War II remains an open wound. In recent years both countries have insisted that the other side must openly address the flashpoints of the past before relations can improve. Boldly tackling the most contentious chapters in this long and tangled relationship, Ezra Vogel uses the tools of a master historian to examine key turning points in Sino–Japanese history. Gracefully pivoting from past to present, he argues that for the sake of a stable world order, these two Asian giants must reset their relationship. “A sweeping, often fascinating, account...Impressively researched and smoothly written.” —Japan Times “Vogel uses the powerful lens of the past to frame contemporary Chinese–Japanese relations...[He] suggests that over the centuries—across both the imperial and the modern eras—friction has always dominated their relations.” —Sheila A. Smith, Foreign Affairs

The Perils of Proximity

The Perils of Proximity
Author: Richard C. Bush
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2013-07-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815725477

The rivalry between Japan and China has a long and sometimes brutal history, and they continue to eye each other warily as the balance of power tips toward Beijing. They cooperate and compete at the same time, but if competition deteriorates into military conflict, the entire world has much to lose. The Perils of Proximity evaluates the chances of armed conflict between China and Japan, presenting in stark relief the dangers it would pose and revealing the steps that could head off such a disastrous turn of events. Richard Bush focuses his on the problematic East China Sea region. Although Japan’s military capabilities are more considerable than some in the West realize, its defense budget has remained basically flat in recent years. Meanwhile, Chinese military expenditures have grown by double digits annually. Moreover, that the emphasis of China’s military modernization is on power projection—the ability of its air and naval forces to stretch their reach to the east, thus encroaching on its island neighbor. Tokyo regards the growth of Chinese power and its focus on the East China Sea with deep anxiety. How should they respond? The balance of power is changing, and Japan must account for that uncomfortable fact in crafting its strategy. It is incumbent on China, Japan, and the United States to take steps to reduce the odds of clash and conflict in the East China Sea, and veteran Asia analyst Bush presents recommendations to that end. The steps he suggests won’t be easy, and effective political leadership will be absolutely critical. If implemented fully and correctly, however, they have the potential of reducing the perils of proximity in Asia.

Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons

Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons
Author: Dr. Jeffrey Record
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 105
Release: 2015-11-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786252961

Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo’s decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan’s decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and that both sides suffered from cultural ignorance and racial arrogance. Record finds that the Americans underestimated the role of fear and honor in Japanese calculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decision-makers.

Japan's China Policy

Japan's China Policy
Author: Linus Hagström
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2005-03-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134278705

Japan's China Policy understands Japan's foreign policy in terms of power - one of the most central concepts of political analysis. It contributes a fresh understanding to the subject by developing relational power as an analytical framework and by applying it to significant issues in Japan's China policy: the negotiations for a bilateral investment protection treaty and the disputed Pinnacle (Senkaku/Diaoyu) Islands. Hagström demonstrates that Japan exerted power over China in such divergent empirical settings for the most part by using civilian instruments positively, defensively and through non-action. Given that Japan's foreign policy is often portrayed rather enigmatically in terms of power, the unique contribution of Japan's China Policy is to demonstrate how to analyze power aspects of Japan's foreign policy in a more coherent fashion. This revealing approach to Japan's foreign policy will be of huge interest to anyone studying Japanese politics, foreign policy or international relations.

Japan–China Relations in the Modern Era

Japan–China Relations in the Modern Era
Author: Ryosei Kokubun
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2017-03-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351857932

From before the dawn of recorded history, there has been a rich flow of interaction between Japan and China. Japan has long learned many things from Chinese civilization, and since the modern era China began to learn from Japan. In the twenty-first century, however, China surpassed Japan in terms of GDP in 2010 to become the world’s second largest economy. Amid this rapid rise of China and what has been called a power-shift in Japan–China relations, there are signs that bilateral tensions are rising and that the image each country has of the other is worsening. This volume provides a cogent analysis of the politics of the bilateral relationship in the modern era, explaining the past, present, and future of Japan–China relations during a time of massive political, social, and economic changes. Written by a team of internationally renowned Japanese scholars and based on sources not available in English, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of Japan–China relations, Japanese international relations, and the politics and international relations of East Asia

China's Relations with Japan in an Era of Economic Liberalisation

China's Relations with Japan in an Era of Economic Liberalisation
Author: Dong Dong Zhang
Publisher: Nova Publishers
Total Pages: 230
Release: 1998
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781560726258

The main purpose of this book is to explore the influences of reform on changes in China's economic relations with Japan after the late 1970s. There are three reasons for investigating the links between Chinese reform and bilateral economic relations at this particular juncture in history. First, in the past two decades reform has meant that China has enjoyed faster economic growth then Japan. This has transformed the pattern of bilateral economic relations, hitherto characterised by an industrial Japanese economy and a resource-based Chinese economy, a result of Japan's successful industrialisation and China's failure to industrialise in the previous hundred years. Second, reform has brought about the deepening of the interdependence between the Chinese economy and the world economy. Through links with the world economy, the Chinese economy has not only come to rely on foreign countries for technology, capital, markets and management skills, but has itself become a growth pole, exerting a strong impact on world economic growth. In the reform era, economic relations between China and Japan have been woven into regional and global economic networks of trade an investment. Third, reform has transformed the management of China's domestic and external economic activities.

China's Trial by Fire

China's Trial by Fire
Author: Donald A. Jordan
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780472111657

A vivid account of Japan's war on China in 1932

Forgotten Ally

Forgotten Ally
Author: Rana Mitter
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2013-09-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 054784056X

A history of the Chinese experience in WWII, named a Book of the Year by both the Economist and the Financial Times: “Superb” (The New York Times Book Review). In 1937, two years before Hitler invaded Poland, Chinese troops clashed with Japanese occupiers in the first battle of World War II. Joining with the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, China became the fourth great ally in a devastating struggle for its very survival. In this book, prize-winning historian Rana Mitter unfurls China’s drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue as never before. Based on groundbreaking research, this gripping narrative focuses on a handful of unforgettable characters, including Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and Chiang’s American chief of staff, “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell—and also recounts the sacrifice and resilience of everyday Chinese people through the horrors of bombings, famines, and the infamous Rape of Nanking. More than any other twentieth-century event, World War II was crucial in shaping China’s worldview, making Forgotten Ally both a definitive work of history and an indispensable guide to today’s China and its relationship with the West.

The China Problem in Postwar Japan

The China Problem in Postwar Japan
Author: Robert Hoppens
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2015-01-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1472575482

The 1970s were a period of dramatic change in relations between Japan and the People's Republic of China (PRC). The two countries established diplomatic relations for the first time, forged close economic ties and reached political agreements that still guide and constrain relations today. This book delivers a history of this foundational period in Sino-Japanese relations. It presents an up-to-date diplomatic history of the relationship but also goes beyond this to argue that Japan's relations with China must be understood in the context of a larger “China problem” that was inseparable from a domestic contest to define Japanese national identity. The China Problem in Postwar Japan challenges some common assertions or assumptions about the role of Japanese national identity in postwar Sino-Japanese relations, showing how the history of Japanese relations with China in the 1970s is shaped by the strength of Japanese national identity, not its weakness.